Baron Bjelke was arrested an hour later, arrested in the very act of entering his own home. The men of Lillesparre's police had preceded him thither to await his return. He was quite calm when they surged suddenly about him, laid hands upon him, and formally pronounced him their prisoner.
“I suppose,” he said, “it was to have been inferred. Allow me to take my leave of the Baroness, and I shall be at your disposal.”
“My orders, Baron, are explicit,” he was answered by the officer in charge. “I am not to suffer you out of my sight.”
“How? Am I to be denied so ordinary a boon?” His voice quivered with sudden anger and something else.
“Such are my orders, Baron.”
Bjelke pleaded for five minutes' grace for that leavetaking. But the officer had his orders. He was no more than a machine. The Baron raised his clenched hands in mute protest to the heavens, then let them fall heavily.
“Very well,” he said, and suffered them to thrust him back into his carriage and carry him away to the waiting Lillesparre.
He found Armfelt in the office of the chief of the police, haranguing Ankarstrom, who was already there under arrest. The favourite broke off as Bjelke was brought in.
“You were privy to this infamy, Bjelke,” he cried. “If the King does not recover—”
“He will not recover.” It was the cold, passionless voice of Ankarstrom that spoke. “My pistol was loaded with rusty nails. I intended to make quite sure of ridding my country of that perjured tyrant.”